Some people from the first dataset were deanonymized. Given age, gender, & zip code is enough to identify 87% of the US.
See http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/netflix-priz... and its links.
See http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/netflix-priz... and its links.
This post, which is linked from the ARS article states a given birthdate, gender, and zip code can uniquely identify most Americans. So, while the parent should probably specify birthdate instead of age, a name is definitely not needed.
As stated elsewhere Netflix should just have a clear opt-in for sharing the data and we can continue on.
I don't think this helps them much in court of public opinion, and it helps even less in not pissing off a segment of their customers. Making it opt-in seems like an easy compromise. The only downside I see is if they get a really low response rate.